Challenges at the Art Gallery

Challenge...and success!

This term the Year Eights' topic is "Challenge". Here's a great example of someone taking on some huge challenges, stepping up and achieving some great results. Well done Meg, your hard work has paid off.

"In the holidays just gone I have been in Invercargill competing in a national synchronised swimming competition. Synchronised swimming is a sport which is split into two categories: 

1. Figures (a slow movement through different positions)

2. Routine (a 2 – 5 minute song where you synchronise to the music.) 

You can compete in a team, a duet, a solo and a combo, you can also compete in different age groups: Dolphin, 12 and under, 13, 14, 15, Junior and senior . You compete against other people in your age and get judged by 6 – 10 judges.

I competed for my club Aquagold and for Balmacewen Intermediate school. I came 1^st in my Intermediate olo for Balmacewen, 1^st in my 12 and under solo for Aquagold, and 1^st in my 12 and under Figures for Aquagold."

Term 3 Celebrations

The last week of Term 3 has been an eventful one. On Tuesday we held the Balmacewen Athletic Sports at the Caledonian Ground. The sun shone down strong and helped inspire some great efforts. A big well done to everyone, no doubt tomorrow's assembly will reveal our champions!
We spent Wednesday busily fine tuning our ASPIRE presentations and showed these off to our parents that evening. This was a great night, showcasing the diversity, creativity and knowledge of all Room 9 students. Thanks to all the parents who came along in support and who have helped out with ASPIRE through the term.
Today we had a shared lunch and then we were hosted to a quiz run by Room 4. Thanks to those 'Quizmasters' in Room 4, a well planned and run quiz!

Tomorrow we will wrap up the term by reflecting on our ASPIRE projects, watching a movie, and then taking part in the Fairplay assembly where we'll be inspired by a guest speaker...who will be revealed tomorrow!
Thanks for tuning in to the Room 9 blog. Our term's been great...time for a holiday!

ASPIRE progress

It's been a hive of activity for Room 9 this week as students get near to completing their Term 3 ASPIRE tasks on 'Impact' and prepare to present these at our parents night next Wednesday. As you can see below their's plenty of creative ideas and wonderful research going on. Parents come along next Wednesday night to see more. 7pm in the Balmac Hall.

  Woonyoung and her group's presentation on recycling.

Oscar, Andrew and Tarren work on their eco-home design.

Emma and Leonie model their creative recycled shopping bag designs.

Liam and Max creating their movie masterpiece, you'll have to come along to enjoy this!

Devon continues working on her group's blog, another way to present and promote their recycled household goods.

Yiheng and Taylor develop their powerpoint presentation, investigating global food availability and prices.

Balmac Speech Competition

A huge well done to everyone in Room 9 for giving fantastic speeches last week. The standard was extremely high and made it tough to decide who would go through to the semi finals. In the end Max and Oscar were our reps and they both spoke excellently to the year 8's on Monday morning. We were excited when the judges announced that they have both made it through to the finals on Friday morning. Best of luck Oscar and Max for the school finals held this Friday 9am in the hall.

Persuasive writing- The BIG issues.

In Room 9 we've been having some pretty heavy discussions on some of the big issues in the world. Some wonderful thoughts and opinions have been shared and listened to. Students have recently chosen a topic of particular interest to them and after carrying out some research have written a piece of persuasive writing. We hope this piece of writing from Tarren Loughran will get you thinking.

What would YOU do if you had a terminal illness? I know my choice. I would go get euthanized. Why? You may ask. Do you think I would WANT to live my life in suffering, pain, regret? I bet most of you reading this don’t even know what euthanasia is right? Now is your chance to find out. In this piece of work, I will take you on a journey explaining what euthanasia is, why New Zealand should legalise it, and I will tell you the story of the life of someone who has had a rollercoaster ride switching between life and death, influencing the worlds view on euthanasia to finally die in peace. But first, let’s start with the info.

Euthanasia is intentionally ending someone’s or something’s life to relieve pain or suffering. To everyone that owns a pet you might know this as being “put down”.

There are 3 main types of euthanasia, voluntary, non-voluntary and involuntary euthanasia. Voluntary euthanasia is when the person to be euthanized has made the decision themselves. Non-voluntary is when the person to be killed is unable to choose themselves, so someone close to them has to make the decision for them. Involuntary euthanasia is when someone is killed against their will. This is also called murder. There are also two types of ways to get euthanized, passive and active. Passive euthanasia means that you die slowly and peacefully. An example of this is unequipping an iron lung or other types of life support. Active euthanasia is when you die quickly and painlessly. For example a lethal injection.

In my opinion, euthanasia should definitely be legalised in this fine country of ours. People should be given the right to die. Why? Say you, yes YOU, are suffering from terminal cancer, stuck in a hospital bed, constantly in pain, endless injections only prolonging your miserable life? Not only would you be in pain yourself, what about all your family members? They could do nothing to save you, shivering in despair of the inevitable waiting to happen. Doesn’t sound nice does it? There’s only one solution. Euthanisation.

Let me tell you the story of one person who changed the view of euthanasia around the world. Terri Schiavo. The story begins when Terri collapses face first onto the pavement, unconscious. She was rushed to hospital and couldn’t live without complete life support. In 1998 Michael Schiavo, Terri’s husband, filed a petition to remove her feeding tube, therefore letting her die rather than suffer. Her parents opposed this refusing to let Terri die. In 2003 Terri Schiavo got her feeding tube removed but the government ordered it to be put back in, making her endure more pain. Terri finally died at a Pinellas Park Hospice in 2005 after having her feeding tube removed for a second time. Studies show that patients who have their feeding tube removed usually die a peaceful death. If you were Terri, what would you do?

I hope I have widened your knowledge about euthanasia, as well as helping you choose a side in the everlasting debate over this highly controversial topic. Do you want to live like Terri Schiavo? Endlessly suffering great pain? This is why I think NZ should legalise euthanasia. If I want you to take one thing from this it is this. You have the right to die.

Balmac Cross Country (The Mud run!!)

Big thanks to Maddie Guthrie for this entertaining recount of the Year 8 girls cross country.

“Year eight girls!” screamed Mr Napier. The apocalypse is upon us, I thought to myself as my legs scraped along the turf. Right it’s now or never fake breaking a leg or something. My mind raced with excuses. Maybe I could hide in the bathroom, or go home sick because I was sick, sick to death of running.

“There’s no escape Maddie,” I thought, and next thing I knew I was at the start.

“On your marks get set GO,” we were off!!! Almost instantly I was puffing. Girls racing ahead made my stomach churn.

“Halfway up cross country hill, at the top of cross country hill,” I chanted in my head. And then it happened, the first fall. I was turning the corner of the grassy lumpy hill when the mud grabbed me and pulled me down to the rotten smelling ground. I heard Mr Yeoman encouraging me to get up. “That’s it, that’s my excuse, I’ll cry and make a scene, it can end now.” But before I knew it I was up running and wiping the sticky mud out of my stinging eyes.

“Why am I doing this to myself?” I thought. “Stop while you can Maddie.” But as usual I kept running, I was screaming at myself, my head throbbed with pain. The rest of the race was a blur until the next deadly road block. A chain. All it would take was that stupid chain and I would be free. I felt my foot stick to the chain and my body lose control, my arms reached out to break my fall but they were too late. There I was winded and lying face first in the cold sour smelling mud.

“Right you’ve had your fun, give it up Maddie, you can’t continue.”

But yet again my defiant body got up and ran.

“No!!! You idiot that was your last chance to quit.” But something in me wanted to finish, I had to finish. With watering eyes and determination I finally finished 29^th. I had never felt so good and so proud that I kept going and nothing stopped me and then a sickening thought came to mind…I hope Mum likes mud!!!

Becoming observant writers!

Today we went outside so we could use all of our senses (sight, hearing, smelling, touching, tasting) to observe our environment. We're going to use our observations to help us write the orientation in our narrative writing. (By Ben Cunningham)

These are some of the observation drawings done by Room 9 students this afternoon. Thanks Erin, Oscar and Taylor for volunteering your work.

Jamming with Room 9

We're lucky in Room 9 this term to have our ukelele teaching sessions. So far we've learnt some new chords and strumming patterns, several new songs and a bit of music theory focussed on chord progressions. On top of these sessions we've been having our own music sessions in class with plenty of keenies on ukeleles, drums, percussion, guitars and singing. It's great to have some musical sounds humming out from the class!

Listen Up!!

Last week we were lucky to have Kasam's mum Fiona come and speak to us about looking after our hearing and the IMPACT that loud noise can have on people's lives. We learnt heaps about how our ears work, what can damage our hearing and how to look after ourselves and others. We even tested our music with a dummy measuring the decibel level. Thanks Fiona! Maybe someone can do some more research about this for their ASPIRE project?

Visit to the bush

The day is Wednesday the 1^st of August and the echo of feet stomping against the concrete travels through the school. The air is sweet with a chill breaking through, we walk travelling through the school and across the road to the Gland Mire road reserve. The sign is old and cracked but the letters still make the words “Balmacewen has helped plant trees so please don’t litter.” The hill is covered in moss and slippery green slime. We are all gathered at the top of the hill and as we all stare at Mr Yeoman a man walks by. Room 9 stares ahead but then he comes into focus and we can see the bags in his hands filled to the top with cans. Room 9 applaud and we hear his story of how he collects them for his friend and he cleans up the creek. We were so impressed Room9 applaud and then as he walks away we are left knowing more about how we have to be careful for the environment and look after the reserves in Dunedin. 

By Mae Devereux.

Term 3 Impact

We've now kicked in to Term 3. Our topic this term is Impact: What impact do we have on the environment?What difference can we make? So far we've discussed some local impacts, we've looked into climate change and ecological footprints. The photos above show us exploring our back yard, looking at the state of the Kaikorai Stream and the native planting area beside it. It's time to start thinking about what might interest us for our ASPIRE project which will start in a few weeks time.

Matariki madness!

At the end of term two we had a whole lot of fun studying Matariki. This was a great way to round out a great term and look forward to the second half of the year that lies ahead of us. Here's some photos of a maori song, dance and games session we had with Matua and making and flying our kites.